Meet Me at the Bar
by Illusionize
Summary: "Shepard and Vakarian, storming heaven... I guess there are worse ways this could end." Cameron Shepard brings an end to the Reaper War. -fix-it fic- -HUGE ME3 SPOILERS-


_So I accidentally a fix-it fic. Well, nobody else liked the ending either, did they? Fair warning - this isn't a happy 'everybody lives' ending. I just took the ending I got and... changed it, a littl__e._

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><p>If this thing is God, Cameron thinks, then maybe she should have stayed an atheist after all.<p>

"I _won't_," she insists.

Two choices lay before her. She can either choose to control the Reapers or to destroy all synthetic life: Reapers, AI, geth. Both options will result in the destruction of the mass relay system as well as most modern technology.

Both options _suck_ and she doesn't want to choose either of them. What she _wants_ to do is reach over and _strangle_ the kid-God-Catalyst _thing_ then find a way to work the Crucible as a giant fucking gun to shoot at the Reapers. Unfortunately she hasn't figured out how to strangle holograms, though it isn't because she hasn't tried.

"_You must_," thunders the Catalyst. Its voice weighs down on her, both on her physical body, forcing her to step forward, and on her mind, stamping out any thoughts of a third option before they even have time to form.

It feels like indoctrination, and she hates it.

All her talk about choice is wasted. The last three years of her life (and death, and life again) are _wasted_. The only choice left to her, the only choice _allowed_ to her, is the choice to turn either left or right. Toward control or toward destruction.

Toward the Illusive Man's goal or toward Anderson's.

_Well. When you put it that way..._

Cam grits her teeth and decides. It's not much of a decision, but it's the only one she can make. At least it's _a_ choice, even if it's not the choice she wanted – but that's the Catalyst's voice in her head, trying to make everything okay.

Everything is not okay. Everything is not _going to be_ okay.

Maybe organic life will manage on its own despite what she's about to do. The turians and quarians down on Earth are probably going to starve; there's not enough dextro food to feed them all; not indefinitely. The krogan there will die out – all their females are on Tuchanka, so they couldn't breed on Earth if they wanted to. The asari should manage. The salarians could manage. The humans _will_ manage – they, at least, have the home field advantage. Maybe overpopulation would be a concern, but... there are _so many_ dead. A high population will be the least of their problems. The Reapers only attacked major population centres – they hardly touched the fields, the farms, the arable land. It will be hard, but the survivors should be able to work past it.

It's strange; she never used to think about things like that. Maybe it's the Catalyst at work again.

She raises the arm holding her gun – just her pistol, unfortunately. She aims carefully and fires: once, twice, again. She wishes she had her shotgun; at least then this would be over quick. A fourth shot; a fifth. Finally the power conduit ruptures.

The resulting explosion knocks her flat. Her head hits the floor: yet another concussion, she thinks. Her vision gets blurry around the edges; she feels herself about to pass out.

She doesn't think she's going to wake up, this time.

The last thing she sees is the Crucible powering up.

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><p>Cameron dreams.<p>

She dreams the destruction of the Reapers. She dreams the Crucible firing one last shot to the Sol relay, overpowering it until it explodes, and firing that energy off toward Arcturus and beyond. One by one the relays are destroyed in an unstoppable chain reaction.

She dreams of the Normandy, Joker frantically trying to get his baby to go faster and faster still, trying to outrun the wave of energy from the Crucible while systems fry all around him. _You just don't know when to quit, do you?_ she wants to say. _I'm not there to pull your ass out of the dying ship this time._

Joker fails and the Normandy crashes. It was inevitable, if the Catalyst was to be believed – and she doesn't think it was, not until it forced her to choose between one shitty ending and another.

Miraculously, the hatch on the Normandy opens. Joker steps out, followed by Kaidan and Garrus – but that can't be right; they'd both died, hadn't they? The three of them look around the crash site at the jungle surrounding them.

Then suddenly all the feeling returns to her body.

Cameron knows she's dead. She _has_ to be; there's no way she could have survived – not with all her injuries, not with all the others who fell, not with both Thane _and_ Kaidan dead.

But if she _is_ dead, why does she feel so utterly horrible? She feels like she's been trampled by Brutes – technically _she_ trampled _them_, or at least charged into them – then shot about a million times – she was, and Harbinger's beam certainly didn't help – _and_ blown up – at the Crucible, of course.

Her entire body feels like one gigantic bruise.

Despite all that, she also feels invigorated.

She opens her eyes – slowly, as the sunlight turns out to be nearly blinding. She waits for the fuzziness to fade, and is rewarded with a good look at her surroundings. She's on a small outcropping bordered by trees on one side and beach on the other. The sun is bright, the sky is cloudless, and the sea is a perfect sparkling blue. Something about the trees looks familiar, almost as if... yes! They're the same trees she saw around the crash site.

Maybe the Normandy is there too. There's only one way to find out.

Cam scouts the area for nearly an hour before she thinks to climb a tree and see what's visible; it takes another half hour to find a tree sturdy enough for her to climb. From there she sees the smoke from the crash, and tries to estimate about where it should be. It takes another two hours to get there.

What she finds is astounding.

The Normandy crew has been hard at work building a shelter against what's left of the ship; even now crew members are still working, with Legion and Wrex doing most of the heavy lifting. Mordin and Adams each have a small group they're directing, though from this far away Cam can't tell what exactly they're working toward.

As she gets closer she hears Kaidan shouting orders, while Vega tries to flirt with Ashley. She sees Joker sitting on a crate with his arm around EDI's shoulders. He's leaning against her, though it doesn't look like it's for the support. Garrus and Tali are sitting off in the shade. Tali's faceplate is off and she's nuzzling her cheek up against Garrus's mandible.

Cam hears something drop down from the trees behind her, and spins around, wary. Then she freezes up, because–

"Siha."

Thane recovers from his landing and walks up to her. Cam can't help it; she throws her arms around him and kisses him until she's breathless. Thane only laughs, and she ends up joining in, laughing giddily until she nearly loses her balance.

"We did it," she says.

"You did, siha," Thane replies.

"We're dead, aren't we? All of us."

"Yes." He says it carefully, as if he thinks she might react badly.

"Well." She looks back fondly at the camp. "As far as afterlifes go, this is a hell of a lot better than I'd expected."

Cam takes his hand and starts back toward the camp. "Hey, Vakarian!" she shouts. "Don't tell me you haven't found the bar yet – you owe me a drink!"

It's a better afterlife than she'd expected... but, she thinks, it's the afterlife they all deserve.

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><p><em>I couldn't find a way to work it in but there's totally a huge resort-type thing not too far from where they all ended up; they just haven't found it yet.<em> That_ is the afterlife they all deserve!_


End file.
